An encyclical is a formal letter written by the Pope to the bishops of the Catholic Church and to the wider world. It is used to provide guidance on important issues relating to faith, morality, society, culture, or global challenges.

On 25 May 2026, at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV formally released his first encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Magnifica Humanitas is Latin for Magnificent Humanity or The Magnificence of Humanity. In this letter, the Pope provides all of us (Catholic or not) with a timely reminder that while AI can be a powerful tool for learning, it must never replace the uniquely human qualities that education seeks to nurture.

Pope Leo XIV (2026) says,

Never has humanity had such power over itself.

He is warning us that we are creating technologies with an unprecedented capacity to shape how people think, learn, communicate, work, and make decisions. Unlike previous waves of innovation, these technologies are not just changing the world around us; they are increasingly influencing human behaviour, knowledge, relationships, and access to opportunity on a global scale.

With that level of influence comes significant responsibility. The challenge is no longer simply whether we can build these technologies, but whether we should, how we should, and ultimately who benefits from the choices we make.

The Promise and Peril of Technology

Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice (Pope Leo XIV, 2026).

Here, Pope Leo recognises that technology is not inherently good or bad. Its impact depends on the choices we make about how it is designed, governed, and used. Technology has the potential to bring enormous benefits. It can heal through medical advances, AI-assisted diagnostics, and improved access to healthcare. It can connect people across cultures, enable new forms of collaboration, and strengthen communities. It can support education by creating more personalised learning experiences, expanding access to knowledge, and helping teachers meet the needs of diverse learners.

Technology can also play an important role in caring for our planet. From monitoring environmental change to improving resource efficiency and supporting sustainability initiatives, it offers powerful tools to help address some of the most pressing challenges facing our world.

The Risks We Must Address

At the same time, Pope Leo warns that the very technologies capable of delivering such benefits can also cause significant harm. They can deepen divisions through misinformation, polarisation, and algorithm-driven echo chambers that shape what people see and believe. They can widen existing inequalities by excluding those who lack access to technology, digital literacy, or the resources needed to participate fully in an increasingly digital society.

He also highlights the risk of new forms of injustice emerging when technology is not developed or used responsibly. Biased algorithms can reinforce discrimination, surveillance technologies can erode privacy and personal freedoms, and the benefits of innovation can become concentrated in the hands of a privileged few while others are left behind. The challenge, therefore, is not simply technological but deeply human: ensuring that these powerful tools serve the common good and contribute to a more just and inclusive society.

What This Means for Educators

For teachers, this is a reminder that our role is not simply to teach students how to use technology. We must also help them develop the wisdom, critical thinking, ethical understanding, empathy, and sense of responsibility needed to ensure that technology serves humanity rather than the other way around. In many ways, Pope Leo is calling educators to focus not just on preparing students for the future of technology, but on preparing them to shape that future in ways that uphold human dignity, social justice, and the common good of all mankind.

Choosing the Future We Want

The Pope advises …

As technological development rapidly transforms languages, relationships, institutions and forms of power, we believers must and can choose which projects to work on and in what manner, so as to safeguard and value the grandeur of humanity that has been given to us as a gift. This is a choice not only for our future but also for our present, since artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are already part of our daily lives (Pope Leo XIV, 2026).

In this quote, Pope Leo recognises that technologies such as AI are reshaping the very fabric of society. They are influencing how we communicate, how we form relationships, how schools, governments and businesses operate, and even who holds influence and power. The pace of this transformation is unprecedented, and its effects are currently being felt in classrooms, workplaces and homes all over our planet.

The Pope rejects the idea that technological change is something that simply happens to us. He argues that people have the freedom and responsibility to shape the future. We can choose which technologies we develop, which innovations we embrace, and the values that guide their use.

Safeguarding the Grandeur of Humanity

At the heart of the Pope’s letter is the belief that every human being possesses an inherent dignity and worth that cannot be reduced to data, efficiency or productivity. The Pope’s phrase “the grandeur of humanity” points to the remarkable qualities that make us human: our creativity, empathy, wisdom, moral judgement, relationships, imagination, capacity to love, and search for meaning. These are not problems to be solved by technology; they are gifts to be cherished and developed.

The Pope reminds us that these issues are not distant concerns for future generations. The decisions being made today about AI, digital technologies and data are already influencing how students learn, how teachers teach, how people access information, and how societies function. The ethical questions surrounding technology are immediate and require action now.

Rather than calling for resistance to technology, Pope Leo acknowledges its reality and growing presence. AI is already embedded in search engines, educational tools, healthcare, communication platforms and countless everyday activities. The challenge is therefore not whether to engage with these technologies, but how to engage with them wisely and ethically.

The Educator’s Responsibility in the Age of AI

For educators, this is a reminder that our role is not simply to help students become competent users of technology. We must also help them become thoughtful, ethical and responsible human beings. In a world where AI can increasingly generate content, answer questions and automate tasks, schools have an even greater responsibility to nurture the uniquely human qualities that machines cannot truly replicate: curiosity, creativity, compassion, critical thinking, wisdom, emotional intelligence and moral courage.

The Pope’s message is ultimately one of optimism. He believes that while technology is transforming society, humanity still has the power to decide what kind of future it wants to build. Education therefore becomes one of the most important places where that future is shaped. By helping young people understand both the opportunities and the risks of AI, teachers play a crucial role in ensuring that technology remains in service of humanity rather than humanity becoming subservient to technology.

Environmental impacts

While much of the conversation around AI focuses on productivity, innovation, and educational possibilities, Pope Leo reminds us that these technologies also have a physical footprint that must be considered ethically and responsibly.

Current AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions, and place heavy demands on natural resources. As their complexity increases, especially in the case of large language models, the need for computing power and storage capacity grows too, which requires an extensive network of machines, cables, data centers and energy-intensive infrastructure. For this reason, it is essential to develop more sustainable technological solutions that reduce environmental impact and help protect our common home (Pope Leo XIV, 2026).

The Pope is drawing attention to the reality that AI does not exist in a virtual world detached from the environment. Every AI interaction relies on physical infrastructure powered by electricity and cooled using significant amounts of water. The data centres that support AI systems require vast quantities of energy and water to operate and prevent overheating. As demand for AI services continues to grow, so too does the environmental cost associated with powering and maintaining these systems. The Pope is not condemning AI, but encouraging society to acknowledge and take responsibility for these hidden environmental consequences.

Rather than rejecting technological progress, Pope Leo calls for innovation that is environmentally responsible. He argues that technological advancement should not be measured solely by capability or profitability, but also by sustainability. Developers, governments, businesses and users all have a role in encouraging more efficient AI systems, cleaner energy sources, and infrastructure that minimises environmental harm. The benefits of AI should not come at the expense of future generations or the health of the planet.

Anthropic at the launch.

Anthropic, the company behind the gen AI tool Claude, was represented at the Pope’s launch. Anthropic’s co-founder Christopher Olah was invited to speak prior to the Pope’s presentation. The 33-year-old (atheist) tech leader and the Pope made an unlikely duo. The Pope personally thanked Olah for his presence, saying:

What a great sign of hope it is that with our differences we can listen to one another (Vatican News, 2026).

In his remarks, Olah was honest about the pressures and shortcomings of the AI industry, acknowledging that AI labs operate inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing. He raised concerns about the global concentration of AI development, asking how the gains of AI could be shared more equitably, calling it “an unsolved problem, and the kind of problem the Church has historically refused to let the world ignore.” Olah, closed with a call to religious communities, civil society, academics, and governments to follow the Pope’s example, to take the challenges of AI seriously, arguing that the industry needs “informed critics who will tell the labs when we are failing” and “moral voices that the incentives cannot bend (Olah, 2026).”

What the Pope says about school education

Chapter 4 of the encyclical is titled “Safeguarding Humanity at a Time of Transformation: Truth, Work, Freedom”. One section in this chapter particularly stood out to me, under the heading “The Central Role of Schools” …

Many educational systems struggle to keep pace with change and to support the integral development of students. The advance of information technologies and AI is rapidly rendering curricula obsolete that were designed for a different era. Meanwhile, the organization of schools, physical spaces, evaluation methods and the role of teachers themselves must be rethought in order to promote an authentically integral education that addresses every dimension of the person. It is necessary to support the ongoing formation of teachers throughout their professional lives, so that they can engage positively with new technologies, helping students to use them responsibly, critically and creatively, rather than passively succumbing to their influence (Pope Leo XIV, 2026).

This passage speaks directly to one of the greatest challenges facing education today. Pope Leo is not simply commenting on technology; he is questioning whether many of our educational systems are still fit for purpose in a world being transformed by artificial intelligence and rapid technological change.

The Pope acknowledges a reality that many educators experience every day. While society is changing rapidly, schools often struggle to adapt at the same pace. Curricula, assessment systems, structures and policies are frequently built upon assumptions from a different era. At the same time, the Pope reminds us that education should be about far more than academic achievement. The purpose of education is the integral development of the whole person, intellectual, social, emotional, ethical, creative, physical and spiritual. In a rapidly changing world, schools face the challenge of preparing students not only for employment but also for meaningful and responsible lives.

The Pope is not suggesting that traditional knowledge has no value, but rather that many curricula were designed for a world where information was scarce, knowledge was relatively stable, and success often depended on memorisation and routine problem-solving. Today, students can access vast amounts of information instantly, and AI can increasingly perform many routine cognitive tasks. This raises important questions about what knowledge, skills and dispositions should be prioritised in schools.

In an AI-rich world, qualities such as critical thinking, creativity, ethical reasoning, communication, collaboration, adaptability and lifelong learning become even more important. The Pope is challenging educators and policymakers to ask whether current curricula are adequately preparing young people for the realities they will face.

Pope Leo argues that responding to technological change is not simply about adding AI lessons to the curriculum or purchasing new digital tools. It requires a deeper re-imagining of education itself.

The design of schools, the way learning spaces are organised, the methods used to assess students and even traditional assumptions about teaching may need to evolve. Assessment systems that focus heavily on the production of standardised outputs may become increasingly problematic when AI can generate those outputs in seconds. Similarly, classrooms designed primarily around the transmission of information may be less effective when information is available everywhere.

Instead, schools need to place greater emphasis on inquiry, problem-solving, creativity, collaboration, reflection and authentic demonstrations of learning.

The Pope’s vision is not centred on technology but on humanity. The goal is not to create students who are merely technologically proficient. The goal is to help young people flourish as complete human beings. The Pope suggests that if educational reform focuses only on technological competence, it will miss the deeper purpose of education.

Prioritising professional learning

The Pope recognises that teachers cannot be expected to navigate profound technological change without ongoing support and learning opportunities.

Professional learning can no longer be viewed as an occasional event. In a world where technologies evolve continuously, teachers themselves need opportunities to remain informed, develop new skills and reflect on the implications of emerging technologies for learning and assessment.

Importantly, the Pope is not suggesting that teachers need to become technology experts. Rather, they need the confidence and understanding to make informed educational decisions about technology.

The Pope does not advocate blind enthusiasm for technology, nor does he call for rejection of it. Instead, he encourages educators to engage positively and thoughtfully with technological developments.

This balanced approach recognises that AI and digital technologies can offer genuine educational benefits when used wisely, while also acknowledging the risks and limitations that require careful consideration.

Ultimately, Pope Leo XIV is calling for educational transformation that places humanity at its centre. In an age where machines can increasingly generate answers, schools have an even greater responsibility to develop wisdom, character, creativity, compassion and critical thinking. The future of education, in the Pope’s view, is not about competing with artificial intelligence but about cultivating the qualities that make us most profoundly human.

t is refreshing and encouraging to see such progressive and thoughtful statements on education coming from one of our world leaders.

Summary

Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas arrives at a pivotal moment, offering educators, policymakers, and technologists a clear moral framework for navigating the age of AI. His message is not one of fear or rejection, but of intentional, human-centred engagement. Technology (including AI) holds extraordinary potential to heal, connect, and educate, but only when guided by the values of justice, dignity, and sustainability.

For schools in particular, the challenge is profound and clear: to move beyond preparing students as competent technology users and instead cultivate the curiosity, compassion, critical thinking, and ethical courage that no machine can replicate.

The Pope’s call for ongoing teacher formation, a reimagining of curricula, and a reckoning with AI’s environmental costs reflects a vision of education rooted in the whole person rather than mere productivity. Ultimately, Magnifica Humanitas reminds us that the future of AI is not something that will simply happen to us, it is something we are actively choosing, and the choices we make in classrooms today will shape the kind of humanity we build tomorrow.

References

Olah, C. (2026, May 25). Remarks on Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. Anthropic. Anthropic article Pope Leo XIV. (2026). Magnifica Humanitas: On safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. Vatican Publishing House.

Pope Leo XIV. (2026). Magnifica Humanitas: On safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. Vatican Publishing House.

Vatican News. (2026, Month Day). What a great sign of hope it is that with our differences we can listen to one another [Video]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1382134403753319

Portions of the research, summarisation and editing process for this article were supported by ChatGPT 5.5 and Claude. These tools were used to help summarise and analyse Magnifica Humanitas (Pope Leo XIV, 2026), identify key themes, and refine the clarity and structure of the writing. All interpretations, conclusions, and final editorial decisions remain those of the author.

If you would like Dr Tim Kitchen to work with your school, contact him via – https://timkitchen.net/ctl/